"Yet let us not," said the astronomer, "too arrogantly limit the
Creator's power."

"It is no limitation of Omnipotence," replied the poet, "to suppose
that one thing is not consistent with another, that the same
proposition cannot be at once true and false, that the same number
cannot be even and odd, that cogitation cannot be conferred on that
which is created incapable of cogitation."

"I know not," said Nekayah, "any great use of this question. Does
that immateriality, which in my opinion you have sufficiently
proved, necessarily include eternal duration?"

"Of immateriality," said Imlac, "our ideas are negative, and
therefore obscure. Immateriality seems to imply a natural power of
perpetual duration as a consequence of exemption from all causes of
decay: whatever perishes is destroyed by the solution of its
contexture and separation of its parts; nor can we conceive how
that which has no parts, and therefore admits no solution, can be
naturally corrupted or impaired."

"I know not," said Rasselas, "how to conceive anything without
extension: what is extended must have parts, and you allow that
whatever has parts may be destroyed."

"Consider your own conceptions," replied Imlac, "and the difficulty
will be less. You will find substance without extension. An ideal
form is no less real than material bulk; yet an ideal form has no
extension. It is no less certain, when you think on a pyramid,